Respite. Now I’m back.

After fulfilling my goal of writing reviews of all 678 of my records, I’m ready to start posting again.

How frequently? I don’t know. About what? Not sure.

But I opened today my blog for pretty much the first time in a couple weeks and found something. A sign I think, that is nudging me to continue writing in this space.

Here’s what happened: First thing I did was go to the page which shows me how many posts I received broken down by days. Last full day was Saturday (Jan. 29), so I clicked on Saturday and it read (quoting verbatim): Saturday 1/29/2022 678 Views.

678 views.

That of course is the number of albums I’ve reviewed.

I got goosebumps.

I’ve posted nearly 900 times on here with my reviews and other items. I have never have seen that before. And here this number pops out at me on the first day back on my blog since its end. Wow.

Now I have encountered strange coincidences before.

Remember the Nun’s study and the MP3 music selection.

So I don’t know whether this means my number is up? Or, that it’s a reminder to keep going.

Given that this kind of thing has happened in the past, I’m going to interpret it to mean keep on going and pay attention to these ‘God whispers.’

How to fight a fatal brain disease with vinyl records (slight return)

I just finished my vinyl countdown. And I’m alive.

Do those two things correlate?

Not obviously, but probably.

Five years ago, after receiving the diagnosis of Lewy body dementia, an incurable degenerative disease that has similar traits to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, I vowed to review my 678 vinyl records in a blog before I died.

With my post today of ‘Tres Hombres’ by ZZ Top, I have fulfilled my vow. The blog is www.myvinylcountdown.com. This blog version (slight return) is slightly different than the AL.com version.

Three ways the blog helped me slow my progression:

1. Hand-eye coordination. Finger acuity. Using my fingers everyday to type helps my memory, finding the right keys and spelling the words right.

2. Finding music. Intellectual acuity. Hearing songs you had forgotten about or rarely played. Busting out albums still in the shrink wrap. Again a memory challenge as the past comes rushing in. Finding some hidden gems worth $$$. Listen to Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk.

3. Organizational acuity. Do you want to organize by alphabet, or genre? Abba to Zappa, or bluegrass to Northern soul?

Thinking back to the day I started this blog (Sept., 16, 2017), I can say I really never thought I’d make it. I wondered about starting an office pool instead — but that would be just wrong.

This is more than an assessment and accounting of my records. This is about using blogging or any hobby as mental exercise and posting publicly to bring awareness to this little known, but not rare, disease.

At the time I made this pledge I didn’t know how long I had before dying — and still don’t.

The numbers on average lifespan after diagnosis are different depending on which source is used, but I was working off of 4 to 8 years. The Lewy Body Dementia Association rightfully points out that every person’s experience is different and some die 2 years after diagnosis and others keep on keeping on for 2 decades.

So I’m at 4 years three months with the blog and about 5 years with my diagnosis. I’m thankful for each new day.

I’ve been through some tough times when hallucinations consumed me. There was a period of time, weeks, months in 2020 when I couldn’t post anything, and I didn’t think I would crawl out of it.

It seemed as if I was living in another dimension or universe.

In my hallucinations, my house was not my house. Depending on the day, it was a counseling center or physical therapy operation where amputees would work out. Then at night it would turn into a research facility where I was the subject of their studies in a room with glass walls for observation and sometimes it was a nightclub.

I was talking to invisible people telepathically. (Wow! I never in a million years thought I’d write that sentence.)

I got to know the other people, or beings, and would engage them in these telepathic conversations. One time I asked Tom, — my son-in-law, — who is British but not an alien, I can assure you — to clear out what I thought was a party going on in the basement.

I went down and began talking to a being whom I could see right through. I asked who he was, where he was from and who all the others are. (It was kind of like the bar scene in ‘Star Wars).”

He said they, like him, were travelers made up of organized energy from the universe; he said something about radio waves and virtual reality. It made total sense when he told me. Now I can’t remember what seemed so real, and what I do remember, I don’t understand. But the general concept was that through virtual reality machines, people could leave their body at home and travel the universe. (Wasn’t this the plot of the Matrix?)

I wandered around the basement-turned-juke-joint full of floating apparitions. An incessant din of bells and bellows came from the elaborate video arcade games. The furniture was alive. I left the basement and came back after a while and it was cleared out. I thanked my puzzled looking son-in-law for shutting it down.

That’s just a few of the hallucinations that made up my days, full immersion hallucinations I call them. I’d also get less complex hallucinations such as a mouse running across the floor, or seeing people’s faces in tree trunks. Once I saw what I thought were people breaking into my car, I ran out, nothing there. But then I looked up and saw them laughing from across the street. It was a hallucination.

I started to learn, or think separately when hallucinating, which helped me control them in keeping my sanity, I would tell Red John, my nemesis in much of this, that he is nothing, that he was not real. It would drive him crazy.

On the medical side of things I started using a new type of medication called pimavancerin, or its commercial name NuPlazid. For me, it was nothing short of a miracle drug.

But that’s only one part of slowing down these rogue proteins that are attacking my brain.

Once the hallucinations stopped I could better figure this out, continue to exercise and eat sesame seeds (supposedly good for brain health.)

I give a big part of my success at keeping the demons at bay with the blog. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to fight myself just typing these words. The Parkinsonian symptoms of the disease make it feel like there are hidden force fields. Getting out of bed being suddenly stuck in the force field and can’t move until I bring my mind back around so its focusing on the task.

Lewy body dementia, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s with Dementia, involves the destruction of brain cells by a naturally occurring protein. The protein, called, alpha-synuclein, gets into places of the brain it doesn’t belong, leaving trails of dying brain cells.

But you have, by some accounts 100 billion brain cells, and many aren’t being used, brain researchers say. I’m working by just thinking about it. I imagine turning those brain cells into replacements or helpers to the ones I have left. Researchers suspect that’s what happened in the renowned Nun’s Study where they found extensive evidence of Alzheimer’s disease in several nuns, including Sister Mary, who showed no visible symptoms while alive. But Sister Mary’s brain was marked by lesions, a sign of Alzheimer’s severe enough that it should have affected her cognition. Yet Sister Mary continued her extensive reading, daily walks, knitting. She lived to be 100.

That’s what I want to do. (No not become a nun, but live to 100).

The symptoms of these diseases can be similar, making diagnosis more difficult. But in general, if your first and early symptoms include tremors, foot shuffling but no significant cognitive decline, you likely would receive a Parkinson’s diagnosis; if you are having hallucinations, night terrors, and significant memory loss you would likely get a Lewy body diagnosis. Another protein altogether is involved with Alzheimer’s disease, which also destroys the brain. I was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s before I got a Lewy body diagnosis.

What’s Next?

I’m going to keep the blog up indefinitely. I have a lot more to write about. I’m going to stay active raising awareness for Lewy, and maybe we’ll get past this COVID thing so we can continue our Mike Madness basketball tournament, which raised more than $30,000 in its three-year tenure before COVID shut it down. And my music? What to do with all these albums. I’m still working on that. Oh yes, and before I go I am reminded of a Blood Sweat and Tears song:

When I die and when I’m gone/ there’ll be one child born in this world to carry on, to carry on

I just found out, I’ll be a first-time grandfather in May.

My daughter, Hannah, and her husband, Tom, are expecting a baby boy.

How’s that for a reason to keep on keeping on.

————-

King Sunny Ade to ZZ Top

You are invited to peruse my 678 reviews plus about 100 other posts on a variety of topics. The countdown posts are somewhat arranged alphabetically from African musician, King Sunny Ade, to ZZ Top. The collection, heavy on the pre-CDs-era of the 60s, 70s, and late 80s covers a range of musicians and bands and genres from Led Zeppelin to Carole King, from George Strait to R.E.M. from Sting to the Scorpions.

Also there’s a button on my home page that reads: ‘His and Hurricanes.’ It’s my playful parody of what the world may be like in the year 2525 (if man is still alive, if woman can survive). I worked on it for about a year, dashing off silliness when I had time, until I stopped to figure out an ending. I haven’t resumed it yet so this may also be something to finish now that I’m done with the big ticket item.

Lastly, I’d like to give credit to AL.com data reporter Ramsey Archibald for the graphic that is my home page. He used albums from my collection to make that colorful collage of record covers.

ZZ Top — 1 (Last One of 678 Listed in reverse alphabetical order)

ALBUM: Tres Hombres (1973)

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$

Well, if you had to guess what would be the last album on MyVinylCountdown list of vinyl records, as organized alphabetically, this would be a good guess.

It’s pretty hard not to be at the bottom of an alphabetical list when your name begins with not only the last letter of the alphabet, but with two of the last letter.

The bearded ones provide a solid bit of closure to this part of my journey living with Lewy body dementia. It is the 678th album, the final album, in my countdown to beat this disease.

I have only one ZZ Top album, Tres Hombres. When La Grange came on the radio, I turned it up. It was like nothing else, a crunching ear worm of a guitar riff and the ‘haw haw haw’ vocal knocked me out. Little did I know at the time that the song with few words was written about a brothel in La Grange, Texas, the inspiration for the Dolly Parton movie, ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.’

I was also quite smitten with the bluesy one-two punch leading off the album: “Waitin’ for the Bus,’ and ‘Jesus Just Left Chicago.’ Heavy chorded blues riffs.

My parents are from Texas and I lived there when I was young. ZZ Top is thoroughly Texan so that’s where part of my affinity for the band lies. In my critiques, I tend to go a little lighter on Texas bands: Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Holly, Freddie Fender, Nanci Griffith, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and PJ Proby, just to name a few. (PJ Proby? Are you kidding me!!)

What the heck am I saying? Go lighter, go easier? These artists are amazing and need not be graded on a curve. Just coincidentally two of the band members, Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill, sported chest-length beards. The other in the trio had no beard but his name is Frank Beard.

They never did anything better than Tres Hombres and La Grange in my mind, although they went on to widespread commercial success, fixtures on MTV. Tres Hombres was their third album, and it was the one that broke through to major success, as they cranked out such crowd pleasers as Cheap Sunglasses, Sharp Dressed Man, and Tush.

Maybe out there somewhere is a group in the genre of sleep music who will put out ZZZ as an album name just to beat ZZ Top’s status as last album in Mike Oliver’s collection. But until then, ZZ Top finishes off my five-year quest to write and post ‘reviews’ of my 678 records before I die of a fatal brain disease. I am doing it to raise awareness of a disease that is relatively common but has no cure nor name recognition.

As a writer I didn’t know of a better way for me to spend my final days writing. The blog has kept me occupied as this insidious disease slowly takes my brain. But I am going to continue to post writings even after this countdown has ended. So stay tuned … like Billy Gibbon’s guitar.

Aw, haw, haw, haw, haw.

Six Hundred and Seventy-Seven Albums

I have one more to go to fulfill my vow to note and review each of my collection of 678 albums appearing on MyVinylCountdown.com

It took me 4 years and 3 months, starting approximately one year after I was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. I literally didn’t think I’d live to see this day. LBD is incurable and degenerative.

Those of you who have followed my blog, which has received more than 270,000 clicks, know that I tried to do this in alphabetical order. Let’s call it a loosely organized alphabetical order.

If I had to do it over I would start with Z and go to A, therefore the reviews would stack up A to Z. As it is they stack up Z to A. If you want to read the blog from A to Z there’s a button on the home page that takes you to the top of the blog. Also on the home page is a Search button that works well. Type in an artist, an album or any topic and it will take you to that post. For example, type in the Replacements to see if I covered them. I did, about four albums I believe.

I’ll post my final countdown post on Sunday. Watch for it. Important note: I am not shutting down my website and I will continue to keep it going, writing about my ongoing experiences living with Lewy body dementia.

For those not familiar with how this all started, check About Me on the home page.

NP

Warren Zevon — 3, 2

ALBUMS: Stand in the Fire (1981, Live); Sentimental Hygiene (1987)

MVC RATING: Stand 4.5/$$$$; Sentimental 4.0/$$$

I met Warren Zevon backstage at a little hole-in-the-wall nightclub on Green Springs in BIrmingham. Oh, it must have been about 1984, or so.

Birmingham News writer Bob Carlton was entertainment writer at the time and had developed a rapport with the singer-songwriter that led to me and a few other Newsers meeting in a tiny backstage room at Norm’s after the show.

I remember asking Zevon if he knew who Tonio K. was because Rolling Stone writer Dave Marsh used Zevon as a comparison to Tonio K. in a review of Tonio K.’s ‘Life in the Foodchain.’

I couldn’t remember exactly what Marsh wrote, and Zevon became persistent. He wanted to know what the Rolling Stone guy said. I felt like I had backed into this. I kind of stammered something about how Tonio K. has similar traits, acerbic lyrics and troubling subject matter. I was dying on backstage.

Tonio K. aka as Steve Krikorian was a favorite of mine but relatively obscure.

No I’ve never heard of him, Zevon said. Awkward moment of silence until one of his bandmates chimed in and said he had heard of him. Redeemed, partly, of my stupid-question-to-a-celebrity moment.

Anyway the concert was great, and I would say we had great seats but I don’t think they had seats at the now defunct Norm’s –at least not during this show.

Zevon had an up and down career, plagued by bouts of alcoholism and depression, as detailed in numerous interviews. He spent much of his life in Los Angeles and was good friends of Jackson Browne, David Lindley, and members of the Eagles. He liked reading “pot-boiler novels’ and was friends with Steven King, Carl Hiassen and Gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson. He was a favorite on the talk show circuit and a frequent guest on David Letterman. His best known song was the fun, novelty hit ‘Werewolves of London.’ Ronstadt did a cover of Zevon’s ‘Hasten Down the Wind.’ In ‘Werewolf,’ he has a lyric which I believe has one of the finest example of alliteration, I’ve heard:

Little old lady got mutilated late last night ..

Say that out loud a few times.

He died of mesothelioma, a disease most associated with the exposure to the inhaling of asbestos. After 17 years of sobriety, Zevon fell off the wagon when he learned of his fatal illness.

My two Zevon albums have not been played in a while. ‘Sentimental Hygiene’ is an underrated group of smart, hard rocking songs. The album is backed by three members of R.E.M. The three members and Zevon put out another album called Hindu Love Gods, which I’ve heard but don’t own. It is excellent if you can find it in a record store or online.

This song he wrote after being diagnosed with a fatal disease.

The other album I have, ‘Stand in the Fire,’ has been called one of the top live albums. I think that’s pushing it. It’s good but not on the same level as The Who’s ‘Live at Leeds; the Rolling Stones ‘Get Yer Ya Yas out or the Allman Brothers’ ‘Live at the Fillmore.’

Musings about the end of my vinyl countdown

The headline is a little on the click-bait side. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not shutting down this blog or my website myvinylcountdown.com.

But I am giving everyone a heads- up that I will within the next seven days publish the last three reviews of my vinyl record collection.

I counted 678 records when I began the blog in 2017 after getting the diagnosis that I had Lewy body dementia. Right now I am at 675. The blog was a way for me to spread awareness of the disease, which has no cure and its cause is unknown.

Likely I will write a story highlighting the best-of or most popular posts and other things I learned.

But raising awareness wasn’t the only benefit.

Spoiler alert: I will proclaim and explain my belief that without this blog, I would either be deceased or in much worse condition than I am now.

To say the blog has been therapeutic is a big understatement.

More soon.

The Zombies — 4

ALBUM: Odessey & Oracle (1968, RE: 2017)

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$$$

Although Frank Zappa, whom I reviewed in my previous post, skewered the psychedelic scene, he might find the Zombies a little more difficult to do that to than others in this genre.

Why? Because the Zombies were good, and ‘Odessey and Oracle’ is an album that transcended the psych genre with its whimsical, melodic songs and cohesion.

The songs are perfectly arranged. The only glitch in the works is the album’s name spells “Odyssey” wrong. (Maybe they meant to do that but it sure kept my spell-checker busy.)

The most familiar and probably the best song here is ‘Time of the Season’ with it’s memorable refrain:

What’s you name? Who’s your daddy?

But there’s not a bad song in the bunch. It is a little on the short side but that’s better than too long– as in Iron Butterfly’s monotonous In a Gadda Da Vida, to name a random psych album from that era. The title song was 17 minutes –a whole album side, whereas 17 minutes of Odessey will get you six songs per side.

Notable songs on here include ‘Changes,’ ‘This Will be our Year,’ and, my personal favorite ‘Hung up on a Dream.’